Records: Mormon church contributed to proposition

Associated Press/October 28, 2008

By Jennifer Dobner

Salt Lake City - Campaign finance records show the Utah-based Mormon
church has made its first financial contribution in support of a Nov.
4 ballot proposition that would ban same-sex marriage in California.

The in-kind donation of $2,078.97 from The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints was made on Oct. 25 to ProtectMarriage.com, a
coalition of faith organizations and conservative groups supporting
Proposition 8.

The measure would overturn the California Supreme Court ruling that
legalized gay marriage.

Jeff Flint, a co-manager of the ProtectMarriage campaign, says the
Mormon church made the in-kind donation to cover the travel expenses
of several Utah-based church leaders who went to California for a
meeting last week.

Flint wouldn't say which church leaders were at the meeting.

Church spokeswoman Kim Farah confirmed the expenditure Tuesday.

Since June church leaders have asked members to give their time and
money to pass Proposition 8. Church members have been enthusiastic
participants in the campaign, working as grassroots volunteers
conducting voter opinion surveys, voter registrations, making phone
calls and other activities.

Mormons have also been vigorous donors to the ProtectMarriage
campaign. Watchdog groups tracking campaign donations estimate Mormons
may be responsible for nearly two-thirds of the more than $28.4
million raised.

Although the church is politically neutral and does not endorse
candidates or political parties, it does get involved in moral issues.
Mormons believe traditional marriage is an institution ordained of
God. The church has actively fought marriage equality legislation
nationwide since the 1990s.

Meanwhile Tuesday, an activist group unsuccessfully tried to deliver a
petition to church President Thomas S. Monson at a temple in Westwood,
Calif.

Courage Campaign founder Rick Jacobs said he and others were turned
away by church personnel on the temple campus and referred to a
ProtectMarriage coalition spokeswoman. The woman offered to accept the
petition with its thousands of signatures, but refused to say she
would deliver it to someone from the church, Jacobs said.

"We wanted to give it to the church. It wasn't addressed to the
coalition," Jacobs said.

The petition, which began circulating on the Internet last week, asks
Monson to halt his faith's involvement in Proposition 8. Jacobs said
more than 17,000 have signed the petition.

Jacobs left the temple without handing over the petition. "We're going
to work on trying to have it delivered in Salt Lake City," he said.

Keith Atkinson, a church spokesman who was at the Los Angeles Temple
on Tuesday, said the coalition decided to receive the petition because
the document references activities managed by the ProtectMarriage
campaign.

"Their issues really seemed to center on the coalition's handling of
the campaign," Atkinson said.

But Jacobs said the sheer volume of dollars streaming to the
ProtectMarriage campaign from identified Mormons puts the church
squarely in the middle of this political debate.

"Here you've got one group of people acting on the instruction of
their religious leader," Jacobs said. "If the Mormon church hadn't
wound up what they've wound up, you'd have a $12 or $15 million
campaign."

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